


Aries to Gemini

by soupysoop



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Character Study...ig?, Depression, HAUNTINGS!!!!, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Suicidal Thoughts, bc She-Did-Do-That, can u tell i wrote this on my phone in a fit of emo depression?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 14:39:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11557281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupysoop/pseuds/soupysoop
Summary: "Its because you're an Aries, fire and wind are great together.”





	1. Chap 1

**Author's Note:**

> 4give me typos idc enuff 2 read thro more then once
> 
> ive never been more self indulgent in my life..I rly RLYYY need 2 b up at 6am for class its almost 4am I wrote this in literally 30 mins eating salsa sitting outside its 50 degrees...cest la vie I guess
> 
> I kinda wanna like...continue this w/ marv either being haunted by whizzers bitter ghost or marv just hallcinating whizzer in grief idk!!!!!!!!!! Who knos!!!!
> 
> Mood songs bc im that kind of bitch  
> https://youtu.be/iRT8mbRWV9k  
> https://youtu.be/-wusPBoXEiA

Whizzer loved astrology. He always said when it came down to why he bothered staying with Marvin, his zodiac sign always played a major role in decision making.

“Its because you're an Aries, fire and wind are great together.”

“What are you again?” Marvin would ask.

And Whizzer would always reply with Gemini, and say it means he's a two faced lying bitch.

Whizzer would go to antique stores and buy old jazz albums by the dozen with money he didn’t have, then proceed to buy old baseball cards 30 dollars a piece.

He’d play Kitty White's greatest hits in moments of sincerity, taking a hold of Marvin and sway him around the living room singing. Peppering kisses on Marv’s face, hopping on top of his toes, changing it to Blossom Dearie or some other random 60’s frenchy vinyl jumping on top of the couch, bouncing and kicking the cushions into the air to the beat.

Whizzer would indulge in Marvin's fantasy of moving out to the middle of the desert, living in a giant, metal warehouse. Isolated from humanity. 

“We’ll just have to distill our urine for water - because hoarding rain only works for bush hermits. There's hardly any rain in wide Texas range.”

“What about power? Don’t think I could live without a damn hair dryer Marv, call me a product of consumer culture.”

“Generators - using fuel.”

“A bit problematic, the inbreds living behind us in the old miners village are bound to steal physical fuel, don’t you think?”

Marvin would ramble on, until Whizzer flopped to his side, throwing the covers over his head.

“Just let the coyotes fend off the CIA Marv, we're going to sleep now.”

Whizzer would go to every estate sale he saw advertised - attending to cynically mock the bourgeois taste of a deceased millionaire, to try on old fur coats and fantasize living in a San Francisco victorian adorned with a velvet sofa and intricate wool rugs. Marvin was always tempted to indulge him, blowing money on a original Saul Bass poster (whoever the hell that was) or something equally or more wasteful. But that wasn't the game Marvin played with Whizzer.

Whizzer would buy books he'd never read because they had nice covers. Whizzer asked Marvin about his dreams every morning. Whizzer would quote movies out loud washing the dishes or ironing shirts. Whizzer would yell out the car window at strangers on the street with particularly bad taste in fashion. Whizzer would hold him so tight sometimes it would feel like his muscles would vaporize. Whizzer. Whizzer. Whizzer.

Marvin missed him. He missed him so much. He never thought anyone could get sick with despair, at least he could never imagine it. Going through it himself. But Marvin can't eat, he can't breath. He can't think, he can't sleep, he can't move. It's the type of depression he's only read in Jean Paul Sartre novels, in Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Martin Heidegger, fucking Friedrich Nietzsche. 

He never thought it would be him wrapped in an existential confusion, questioning to himself, a full grown man with a child for christ's sake, what the point of living was. Him, having the honest to god intention to pop 30 sleeping pills and slit his wrists in the shower. Not the bathtub, because Whizzer didn't like bathtubs. It's like sitting in your own filth Marv, he would say, and shower sex is just so much better than bath sex, he would say.

God, if he wasn't completely disassociated from his body he would fling himself out the window. Splatter on the sidewalk and ruin Cordelia's and Charlotte's livelihoods in this apartment complex when they found his body.

Fuck. Fuck. He can’t do that to his family and friends. He can't.

If Whizzer were there, he'd say that he’s being such a Aries.


	2. chap 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mendel, trina and jason povs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4GIVE THE MISTAKES I WENT 2 BED AT LIKE 7 IN THE MORNING IM CRAMMING PIECES 4 CLASS OASDUHFIDJL
> 
> lost my phone+headphones somewhere in the marina district :-) kinda rotting in anxiety depression bc of that dilemma so whet better coping mech then continuing projecting my borderline personality on falsettos 
> 
> mood songs bc who bothers w/ spotify playlists wen they have a shame complex writing broadway fic:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQBAojEuwM  
> https://youtu.be/WDahmRx5ClQ?t=411 (track 2)

Mendel never considered himself a great grief counselor - he found that treating his patients via placation was most efficient. Urging them on, casually advising as he figured through experience people tend to work their own problems out if given a proper ear to lament into.

However, apparently, placating someone in a state of severe grief prompts all sorts of different Dante levels of suicidal idealization. Placating a person in mourning could be compared to handing a shovel to someone already digging their shallow grave with their bare hands.

_‘There ya’ go Marv!’, he says enthusiastically, throwing a nice, sturdy shovel at the man groveling before his feet, ‘Let me make this one easier for you!’_

Mendel knows this, of course he knows this. He isn’t living in debt for the rest of his life for nothing. Hes aware when treating a person in grief it is strongly advised to be mindful everyone deals with death differently - and with a personality like Marvin’s, it’s not _advised_  ,it is required.

Mendel never considered himself the type to diagnose his patients - he finds that ‘mental illness’ is a personalized cocktail. Someone could have many single traits of whole disorders: what’s the point of labeling when the real point of therapy is learning how to cope, not to fix? Colleagues think it's too much of a naturalistic way to think, Mendel sees it as progressively practical. What can he say; he was raised by bleeding heart, liberal Jews, it’s basic reason that he would grow up to be a bleeding heart, liberal Jew.

Yet, when he entered Marvin’s apartment, he realized something he had already known (the proof in his loans): treating a patient is much different than treating a loved one.

An apartment ripe with the stench of rotting garbage and booze. Marvin’s apartment, torn apart - lights broken, carpets up turned, picture frames splintered, clothing spread across the living room haphazardly. Not his clothing. Apartment filthy, apartment stinking, apartment lonely.

It’s hard to treat someone you love. It's hard to dissociate from worry and panic to assess the problem at hand in a composed head space. It takes skill that Mendel has never had, or ever will have. When it’s family it’s different; he's never had to face that fact until now.

So his mind runs wild with textbook notes and files studied. Borderline, Post Traumatic, Type II. Lexapro, Xanax, Zoloft, Abilify, Clozaril, Geodon, whatever, whatever, and so on.

Mendel married a patient's wife, who was also a patient. He never considered himself to much of a professional.

If Whizzer were there, he’d say it’s because he’s a indulgent, spineless man - a Taurus.

 

\---

 

It wasn’t her job to take care of Marvin.

She abandoned that lifestyle years ago. She’s already gone through the long process of distancing herself from that. The _long_ process - the process that required every ounce of her energy trying to perfect. Had she perfected it? No. But she has progressed substantially up and the _fuck_ away.

She’s above taking care of Marvin and his needs. Through all the fractured states of mind she shifts through on a daily basis, she grounds herself within the theory that she doesn’t have to take care of the people around her in order to feel loved. To receive love, to be loved.  
  
Trina doesn’t need to neglect her own well being for love - she’s loved regardless.

So it’s not her damn job anymore, it’s not. It’s not healthy, it's not progressive.

But _still_ , she finds herself miserable. Completely dismal. The blind fury and bottomless depression, the loss, the guilt, the hopelessness, the selfishness, the love all muddling into a limitless space of hues and values that if she was 4 years younger, would swallow her whole.

But she’s 4 years older. Now Trina looks out onto a sea that only her unhinged imagination can picture and sees no horizon. Not a single light at the end of the fucking tunnel. Its pretentious, it's so hopeless. It would be easier to lose her mind in it. It would be so easy to just fall apart. But she’s hardened. She’s older now - she can’t move from her spot of observation. 

She interacts with Marvin in anguish. No matter which way she tears at her hair and screams, whether it be in concern or frustration, nothing seems to clear her head. It manages to do nothing. Even is Marv snarls and sobs in hysterics or in senselessness, she can’t help but care and  _uselessly_ tear at her hair. And love. Even if it seems useless, she still loves him. 

She loves in a way so on the fringe of the definition she's not sure if anyone could consider it real love. It’s far away from romantic. It’s not familial, it’s not melancholy, it’s not faithful, it's not guilty, it’s not hateful. Maybe it’s a love for Jason. But that implies obligated love. None of this is obligated. She isn't obligated to attempt and help her ex husband. It’s not a devoted love either, maybe some could interpret it as a selfish love. Why is Trina miserable over a miserable man that made her life miserable? Martyr complex? Selfishness? If it was, Trina wouldn't know how to describe it as selfish. No - it’s not. She cares out of love.

It’s just love. In the same way the tints and tones rush manically in her mind, only her fucked psyche can discern wordlessly what this ‘type’ love is. It doesn’t have an explanation.

And that’s life.

She remembers something Whizzer had once told her transparently, in the tone he always seemed use when speaking to her. Vague and distant with a cut of distrust. He was leaning in the doorway of the kitchen watching as she silently wept over the dishes. A typical post divorce dinner occurrence. He asked what's your birthday. She turned to him and answered March 19th.

And he said, “figures.”

 

\---

 

There’s nothing more pathetic than watching an adult embarrass themselves. Seeing an adult make a scene in public over something or another. Watching them make a fool of themselves drunkenly. Witnessing their rage over something as mundane as a sport. It all seems very infantile. Not at all the responsible, mature role model Jason constantly is hearing about.

Although, He’s wise enough to know that at his age, you have to find the lessons within the many mistakes parents make. They’re experienced in their own way.

He still finds them emotionally incapable, though. His dad says he thinks this way to - which scares him. Doesn’t surprise him, but it does scare him.

Because Jason’s dad is repressed borderline personality on a good day. He’s a man who’s been miserable since early childhood, only in his mid 30’s peaked into the chaos acceptable in the age range of 17-21, and before the phrase, 'Jason, I'm gay' could be spoken, he plummeted into a new kind of low. Its unfortunate to say the least, but mostly it’s _embarrassing_.

Not mature, not a good example. It’s a total mess. But he _still_ does his best to see through the frustration and listen to the wisdom he knows his dad has. He knows he loves him. Even if he’s sad, even if he’s hit his mom, even if he hates baseball. Even if he's embarrassing. 

 _'Adult’s can be embarrassing but still wise'._  Jason is accustomed to this reality.

After the bar mitzvah Mendel told him this was truly his becoming of a man. He thinks the guy just immaturely let that slip out in woe, because it was a flatly inappropriate thing to say.

(embarrassing)

After the bar mitzvah, it was the first time he saw his dad break down in unrestrained derangement. It was so startling Jason just about left his body in order to properly endure it. He stood frozen by Mendel as his mom attempted to console him. Her hands awkwardly hovering around his warped form, shifting on her feet casually. Trying to find the footing to help this full grown to get a _grip_.

(embarrassing)

Jason thinks he wanted to run away at that moment. Does every child have to endure this? Does every child have to witness this? It wasn't reasonable. It wasn’t mature. Jason’s wise enough to know that sometimes, emotions just get the better of you. Yet when looking down at his father in that moment, he couldn't figure out the logic. 

(embarrassing)

Consoling his father at age 13 as the man holds onto him with such desperation it makes him want to puke. Helping his father get through a simple game of chess by speaking carefully, thinking cautiously, expressing subtly.

Logically - Jason thinks it's pathetic. Emotionally - Jason thinks it’s heart wrenching. Combining the two into one shapeless mass, Jason simply thinks he's unprepared to deal with it. So his general consensus is embarrassment. And shame. And frustration. And _anger_.

Whizzer used to tell him a Virgo’s worst flaw is their methodical approach to life. He would say to him, “some things are just chance bud: remember that feelings are valid in the face of reason.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow jason was so hard 2 write???? like...girl what the fuc im a fake intellectual.
> 
> next chap is back 2 marv w/ whizzer ghost/hallucination twist and then lesbians
> 
> also @tesuo on tumblr nd my twitter is in my profile but its locked


	3. chap 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the lesbians pov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoopsies i deleted the other third chapter bc i didnt like it ill repost it wen i edit it but it was uglyyy
> 
> ANYWAYS ive been 'busy'...not rly but i kept renting falsettos, showed it 2 all my friends and now im living on cloud nine dopamine euphoria belting the entire ost w/ ollie driving 2 mcdonalds @ 11pm???cracking open a cold falsettos revival ost on spotify premium w/ the boiz
> 
> zzzz its almost 7 in the morning tho nd i still havent slept srry 4 the typos ill edit 2marrow 
> 
> mood songs:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c264mMFc8XI  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=276tBTaIhlw

Cordelia knew who Whizzer Brown was before she really met him. Keyword, _knew_.

Her first introduction was when a neighbor barely acquainted spat that the name was the name of the man who had ruined his life. She got to know Whizzer when said neighbor, recently acquainted, lamented a love story between a supposed libertine and a self proclaimed righteous mind, all while sipping on chardonnay and chuckling. She considered Whizzer Brown a friend never knowing the man’s face, as by then that neighbor acquainted had become a close friend.

So, she knew Whizzer. Whizzer was mean. Whizzer was cruel. Whizzer was self obsessed. Whizzer was shallow and rude. Whizzer was two faced. Whizzer was needy. Whizzer was horny. Whizzer had a big...cock. Whizzer liked to bottom. Whizzer loved sex.

She knew Whizzer Brown. God knows all the nights Marvin spent drinking her wines empty that she knew who Whizzer was. Keyword, _knew_.

Cordelia first _saw_ Whizzer Brown that destined-to-be day, when he seemingly floated onto those little league bleachers like a spirit from the past. 

She first met Whizzer, _met_  Whizzer, three weeks later. Balancing a grocery bag packed with 10 cartons of eggs and 2 bags of flower on right leg firmly planted on apartment door, contorting an arm out with palm open.  

I’ve heard so much about you from Marvin, she said. Face aching and smiling desperately, she remembers saying, it’s so nice to put a face to the name.

She met Whizzer, really met Whizzer, on the 5th floor hallway wearing boxer shorts she’s sure she'd seen Marvin in before, and a sweatshirt she knew was Marvin's, holding mail she knew was Marvin’s to. She met Whizzer, _really_ met him, quirking an uninterested, and what she know speculates as an offended, brow at her, swiftly replying to palms open and sweating;

“Excuse me, do I know you?”

...Huh.

Cordelia had stood frozen there in what she can only remember as, well, not surprise but revelation. Whizzer, she remembers, then raked his eyes over her briefly before opening Marvin’s door and promptly slamming it shut.

Keyword, _knew_.

So, she didn't know Whizzer then. At all.

The ‘privilege’ of knowing Whizzer was met only through Whizzers own choice or commitment.

She got to know him through his unabashed opinions on her girlfriends taste in upholstery. She got to know Whizzer through having to get accustomed to him looking her dead in the eye and explaining (surely in a manner to hurt), that no, her meatloaf was not good. In fact, according to Whizzer, her meatloaf was shit. She got to know Whizzer through the miraculous moments in which Marvin decided to grace her dinner parties with his presence. She got to know him through hallway run ins. She got to know him through borrowed sugar and milk. Cordelia became friends with Whizzer through mutual respect and, since she is never one to be dishonest, tolerance.

Whizzer would say it's because she's a Leo, and the stars know that despite the compatibility between Leo and Gemini, they're not listeners. She would agree with that statement.

So, instead, Cordelia got to know Whizzer. Whizzer was mean. Whizzer was cruel.. Whizzer was two faced, but never dishonest. Whizzer got jealous, Whizzer was critical. Whizzer was uncomfortable with affection but doted endlessly. Whizzer was self obsessed. Whizzer liked...sex.

She felt that Whizzer could float in and out of a room so easily. She felt that as easily as he floated into her life, he could float out. He was an easily understood enigma. He looked through her records and cried over her Karen Dalton vinyl. He looked through her and Charlotte's closet and openly grimaced, insulting her with no qualms and to much sincerity. He’d whisk around her apartment drinking her wines and insulting her cooking. And just as he floated in he floated out.

She knew Whizzer. Keyword, _knew_.

...

Thinking back to the times Marvin would sit on a curb and cry silently to himself, or the times he’d laugh cynically putting cigarettes out in glasses of water, Cordelia thinks that when someone is truly in love with another they’re blind. And that fact makes the tragedy of falling out of love an integral part of falling back into it.

Whizzer would say the same shallow thing’s Marvin would say about him, but with a smirk on his lips and a hood in his eye. Marvin said the same mean things he always said about Whizzer, but with careless breath and a loose lipped smile. 

...

No matter how selfish it is, she finds herself awake at night valuing the actual _value_ of love. She’s at a loss at the possibility that the keyword, _knew_ , is somehow an innate part of _true love_. No matter how selfish it is, the situation at hand has her heart broken over her own insecurities and doubts.

If Whizzer where there, playing a vinyl, drinking her bottles dry, he’d say it’s because she’s a Leo.

And she would have to agree with that.

 

\---

 

Charlotte does her best to think black and white. There’s a right, there’s a wrong. It can be explained, or it can’t. It’s science, or it false. It’s lust, or it’s disinterest. It’s square, or it’s round. Or maybe another shape. Triangular, rectangular. A patient is sick, or they’re not. It’s simple.

In love, she does her best to not take it too seriously. It’s just emotion - a chemical reaction. It’s genuine, but she rather not think philosophically about how genuine. She can say she’s in love with her girlfriend. Simple. Why should she explain? She’s gay, she loves boobs. It’s simple.

Charlotte doesn’t have the energy in her profession to think of the greys. She doesn’t have the time to feel helpless. She doesn’t have the energy _or_ time, when faced with death and tragedy every day, to think of the _tragedy_ and _death_ of it all.

She does her best to think in black and white, because it's simple. Because it allows her to sleep at night. Because, in her preferred profession, it’s the most responsible thing to do. It’s the _required_ thing to do.

Charlotte has had friend’s die, she’s had acquaintances pass away and witnessed good hearts flat line. Peacefully, tragically or gruesomely. It’s all heartbreaking, but at the end of her day she knows that life is death. It’s heartbreaking and depressing, but it’s _life_.

Life, as she lives it, is black and white. You die. Everyone dies.

There are no grey’s in death, even if the cause of death is unnamed and unexplained.

In the case of love, she does her best not to take it too seriously. It’s not in her to take it seriously.

Even if love had been displayed so catastrophically in front of her, twisted up on a hospital bed almost grotesquely in it’s misfortune. Even if she went home that night arm in arm with a lover, as a friend went home with his knuckles white, gripping at his scalp.

Because love is grey. Love is unexplained. As she watches her lover contemplate in grief piping frosting on cakes, she know’s to a great majority love is complicated. It’s many different values of grey, to many different hues. She can’t face it. She doesn’t know if she can ever face it, after what has happened. That fact, although a black and white one, is unfortunately making her life a hell of a lot more complicated. Ironically. 

Charlotte remembers vaguely, because in her profession it's best to forget, a conversation her and Whizzer had when both of them were throwing out their compost. It was a friendly, light conversation - one complaining about the vagueness of politicians. Whizzer had asked, as they were parting ways, for her zodiac sign. She can’t remember his face that night, because in her job it’s best not to remember, but in that moment she can imagine it was amused.

She replied with Gemini, and he responded in a tone Charlotte can’t remember with a smirk she’s imagining;

“God, that does explain it, doesn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chap is repost edit of marvin pov pt2, then whizzer pov :3c
> 
> also my tumblr is more 'active' so hmu there i love 2 talk!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_asNhzXq72w
> 
> sweet validation!


End file.
